Shane Balsom
Shane Morasco Balsom is the young son of waitress and single parent Gigi Morasco and Rex Balsom. Storylines Gigi initially befriends Viki Davidson in 2007 when both women are working at the Bonjour Café in Paris, Texas. Despite being energetic and curious, Shane is asthmatic and has attacks which can send him to the emergency room. Gigi asserts that his father is a deceased war hero, a story Shane likes to hear again and again, but is especially troubled when her old high school boyfriend Rex Balsom later appears at the Bonjour. Fugitive teacher Marcie McBain (in disguise as Bon Jour waitress "Sally Ann") recommends fantasy books to Shane to encourage him to read. When Todd Manning and Lee Ramsey come to Paris to apprehend Marcie, Shane is taken hostage along with Gigi, whom they hope can lure Marcie into a trap. After Marcie is apprehended, Gigi is arrested for aiding and abetting a fugitive, but Viki pays Gigi's bail. She and Shane are reunited as Viki returns to Llanview. Gigi and Shane later go to Llanview to testify in the case against Marcie. Rex's fiancée Adriana Cramer discovers Shane's existence and suspects that he is Rex's son. Rex refuses to believe it and Gigi confirms that Shane's father is a deceased Navy SEAL. Gigi is troubled as Rex begins getting closer to Shane. On March 17, 2008, she admits aloud that Rex is Shane's father. Gigi and Shane celebrate Shane's 12th birthday on March 25, 2008. With Gigi a constant presence and Rex getting closer to Shane, Adriana seeks information on Shane's father Brody Lovett in hopes of gaining some leverage against Gigi. She soon discovers that Brody is alive; wanting to keep him and Gigi apart, Brody's mother had told Gigi that he had died in combat and had told Brody that Gigi had run off with someone else. Brody confirms that Gigi had been pregnant when he met her and Adriana pays him to come to Llanview. Shane is as ecstatic as Gigi is shocked to see Brody and Gigi finds herself forced to keep up the lie that Brody is Shane's father. Later romantically involved with Rex, Gigi eventually tells him that he is Shane's biological father. Meanwhile, Shane and Brody have become attached to each other, and Brody begins poisoning Shane's mind against Rex. As Gigi and Rex prepare to tell Shane the truth, an unraveling Brody prepares to do whatever it takes to keep his "son." Brody kidnaps Shane, and soon begins to hallucinate visions of an Iraqi boy he had accidentally killed in Iraq. In a standoff with Rex and the police, Brody shoots Rex, who is rushed to the hospital and falls into a coma. Gigi finally tells Shane the truth about his paternity and although unhappy with the news at first, Shane begins to accept it. Brody ends up in an Army hospital, horrified to learn what he had done; Rex recovers and is able to get the charges against Brody dropped. Brody shares an emotional goodbye with Shane and is admitted to St. Anne's mental hospital for treatment. Though still concerned for Brody, Shane continues to warm to Rex as their father-son bond develops. On March 12, 2009, Shane is diagnosed with leukemia, Gigi's sister Stacy later learns of a matching donor. Wanting Rex for herself, Stacy pretends that she is the match and forces Gigi to break up with Rex in exchange for her blood. Shane receives the transplant and improves, but Gigi is afraid to reveal Stacy's blackmail in case Shane needs more of her stem cells. In February of 2011, Shane starts being bullied by Jack Manning in high school. Jack and his friends stole money from the school and pinned it on Shane, wrote nasty things on his Myface page, took his inhaler when he was having an asthma attack and worse yet, he stole Shane's clothes and put a video of him naked on the Internet. All of the abuse was too much for Shane to handle, so he went to the roof of the school with the intention to jump to his death. Rex and Gigi arrived just in time to talk him down and not knowing what else to do, they took him to the hospital to have him psychologically tested. Rex, Gig and Shane later had a family therapy session with Dr. Buhari to help Shane cope with being a bullied victim at school. Rex and Gigi later also decided to get married. On June 6, Shane finally stands up to Jack and intentionally drops a barbell on his toe, breaking it, much to the surprise of Jack and his friend Brad Kozinski. After deciding to handle Jack before going to her wedding, his mom Gigi was declared brain dead after she inhales carbon monoxide from a trap set by Jack and his friends on June 14/15, 2011 in the basement of a rental home owned by Brad's dad. On October 12 (at the very beginning of the October 13th episode), Shane pulls a gun on Jack, then shoots the gun, but misses and shoots the tree instead. Bo and Rex stop Shane from actually shooting Jack and they all go the police station. Shane admits to knocking Jack over the head the night of his uncle's murder with his Rex's gun and that he tried to kill him, but changed his mind and took Jack to drop him off at the hospital. The gun is put through a test and its not the murder weapon proving Shane didn't shoot Victor. Jack asks Brody if charges will be filed against Shane, and Brody asks, "Why? You weren't charged for Gigi's death." On October 14, Blair finds out and asks Bo if Shane was charged, he says no and Blair wonders if it's because Shane and Rex are family. Bo says no and explains that if that happened, Jack wouldn't go free either. Two months later, Shane meets Neela Patel (Teresa Patel), who is a new girl at school that Jack has a crush on and Neela also has a crush on Jack, too. Shane then hires Neela to secretly record her conversation with Jack about being responsible for Gigi's death. After Neela recorded her conversation with Jack for Shane, Jack was finally arrested for Gigi's death. On December 27, Shane is reunited with his mom. Rex and Gigi then both explain to Shane that his Aunt Stacy, not Gigi was the one that died in that basement. Gigi and Shane then both went to the police station to explain to everyone that his mother is alive and that Jack wasn't responsible for Gigi's death after all. Gigi then confronts Jack for almost killing her, but Shane told her it's not worth getting even with Shane because he wasn't really responsible for her "death." Gigi and Shane then went back to Llanfair when Rex surprised Gigi by proposing to her again. On New Year's Eve 2011, Shane's parents got married in front of their family and friends at Llanfair. On January 12, 2012, Gigi, Rex and Shane decide to move to England so that Shane can attend art school after Gigi filled out an application when Shane was still bullied by Jack during the previous school year so that he can be in a safer environment. They watched the last episode of Fraternity Row and said goodbye to their friends and family before leaving Llanview to move to England. References Category:One Life to Live Category:One Life to Live characters Category:Buchanan family